All three of The Beatles, (the White Album), Abbey Road, and Let It Be were worked on concurrently; if not concurrent, their creation periods overlapped considerably. Abbey Road is more explicitly a valedictory album, consisting of an effort to cooperate in producing one last piece of work together. Let it be --the movie and the album taken together, documents the struggle to stay together, and its failure, while The Beatles (White Album) must have started out being a straightforward album, in the course of which it became clear that things were going horribly awry. I have no documentation of these claims, so you have to take them for what they're worth (which is: not much).
The White Album ("The Beatles") consisted of two discs, and contained a number of gems; I shall mention only a few: Back in the USSR was a satire of California Girls by the Beach Boys, While my guitar gently weeps practically invented heavy metal, a genre that is hard to define. George Harrison's stature as a composer was now undeniable. The guitar solos included work by Eric Clapton. Rocky Raccoon is a hilarious spoof on Wild West ballads for children's TV, presumably. Obladi-Oblada is a song much admired in some quarters. Blackbird, Why don't we do it in the road, and Julia are three more interesting songs on the first disc. Blackbird is a lovely piece of guitar work by Paul McCartney, while Julia is an ode to John's late mother, featuring John on guitar. There are many instances of Paul McCartney reemerging as a serious rocker, e.g. Helter Skelter.
The second disc contains Mother Nature's Son (also recorded by John Denver, of all people), Sexy Sadie, and Revolution.
Abbey Road seems to me what the Beatles wanted to be their farewell album. There is a song, The End, which has each of the three guitarists playing a guitar solo (I can't remember which segment is by which), and a drum solo (or solos, who knows?). Most interestingly, the album was created with never more than two Beatles in the studio at the same time, possibly even only one of them at a time. All the combining of tracks was done at the engineering stage.
Before the heartbreaking last tracks, they managed to squeeze in a pile of terrific songs: Come Together, a Lennon song on the lines of Walrus. It goes way beyond simple entertainment into a defining experience; Something, by George Harrison, possibly the most effective song he ever wrote, and performed incomparably by the Beatles (despite the obvious dysfunctionality); Maxwell's Silver Hammer (Paul McCartney), silly black humor; Here comes the Sun (Harrison), a startling ode to the Sun in the midst of all the negative 'vibes', a truly sunny song, one of my all time favorites; Because, an eerily beautiful song featuring something like 8 tracks of John, layered. A little later comes an amazing medley of fve songs: Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, the first two by Lennon, the last three by McCartney, all seamlessly stitched into an amazing compound song. It may not be great art, but it is great entertainment, made all the more poignant by the fact of being created piecemeal.
Let it Be: in my mind, this will always be the soundtrack of the movie. The uncharacteristic production was by Phil Spector, but by now it is so familiar that I don't miss George Martin's hand at the controls. To mention only the songs that have become extra well known: Don't let me down (the B side of the Get Back single); Across the Universe, by John Lennon, with an Indian flavor, more recently released in a more unplugged recording; Let it Be, by Paul McCartney; One after 909, a song written when they were still in school; The Long and Winding Road, McCartney; and, of course, the famous rooftop performance of Get Back. (I love this particular clip! Apparently they performed it 3 times on the rooftop.)
[Added later:] I had to add something more; I felt I had short-changed this album. Let It Be, though surrounded by tragedy, in that it depicts the four Beatles in an almost constant state of disagreement, does present a completely different Beatles sound. I, Me, Mine, a strange song sung by John in a peculiar voice, I dig a pony, also a Lennon song; Two of Us, a duet by John and Paul, One after 909, another duet; all of these seem utterly relaxed, and back away from the heavy metal sound in some of the albums immediately preceding. Further, the songs in this album, in particular, even ones where John and Paul sing together, manage to present their contrasting characters and personalities simultaneously. Is it the genius of Phil Spector (the Motown producer and arranger responsible for the sound of Diana Ross and the Supremes, whom Beatles fans loved to malign for having produced Let it Be), or was their sound evolving towards Let it Be all along? In any case, it seems to me that the Beatles could not have made a whole lot of albums with the Let it Be flavor; it was possible because it was the only one of its kind.
There were other songs: Hey Jude, The Ballad of John and Yoko, not to mention the songs for Yellow Submarine; obviously we're not going to talk about all the Beatles' songs. What I've presented are my favorite songs, and the ones that were --and are-- heard most often. For those who want to immerse themselves in the sights and sounds of the Beatles on the eve of the breakup, the four Anthology DVDs are wonderful. They are presented by Paul, Ringo and George in such a way that one can choose what to believe, and what to disregard based on what one knows of the character of each of them.
Four such talented individuals, with such unique personalities; what were the chances that they would get together, and find that they were compatible? What were the chances that their different musical instincts could remain convergent for so long? But it happened, and the result was a hundred amazing songs that influenced popular music for half a century. They influenced harmonic styles in pop music, lyrics, the sophistication of bass lines and guitar themes, studio recording techniques, their responsibilities towards their fans, the media, the development of the idea of a pop musician as a multi-dimensional person with many interests. They expanded their middle-class values to embrace many liberal ideals that were developing in society with grace and a fair degree of patience. They were arrogant as youths, but learned humility in some measure, not an easy thing for such successful individuals. And their music is worth preserving, and keeping before the public.
Arch
No comments:
Post a Comment